Fiona Howard, the horse-mad child of an American mother and British father, first came to the United States from her native England when she was 16. She was seeking treatment for dystonia, a muscle condition that was weakening and warping her body, and ultimately spent most of her first several years here, from age 16 to 22, in a hospital bed at Boston Children’s Hospital. She started riding again when she was strong enough, and got into para-dressage in 2022. 

Today, she leaves the Paris Paralympic Games as a triple gold medalist—one of two, along with teammate Rebecca Hart—representing the U.S. in a competition that saw the country ascend to the top of para-dressage in historic fashion. After the team won its first team gold medal Friday, Howard, Hart and teammate Kate Shoemaker each earned medals in Saturday’s final freestyle competition. 

For Howard, the journey from Boston Children’s to the dressage arena at the Palace of Versailles has been far longer than the miles.

“When I was in the hospital, I didn’t really know what my life was going to look like,” she said. “I was alive, but I wasn’t actually living a life. So I just kind of took it one day at a time, and just people believed in me. My doctors believed in me, my support team here believed in me. Looking back, I’m like, ‘Wow, I climbed a mountain.’ I have to give a lot of credit to the people around me, because I wouldn’t be here without them.

“Horses have been a reason to just keep going,” she added. “They’re always there for you. Every morning, I wake up and I’m grateful to be around them. Every moment I spend with them just kind of inspires me to keep going.”

Riding Hof Kasselmann and Dressage Family LLC’s Diamond Dunes, Howard today scored a personal best 81.99% in the Grade II freestyle to earn her third gold medal of the Games, as the team’s rookie rider, after also topping the Grade II individual and team tests earlier in the week. Great Britain’s Georgia Wilson took silver on Sakura (79.37%) and Germany’s Heidemarie Dresing won bronze with Dooloop (76.12%).

“I came into this Games, [and] I just wanted to put down the best tests I could,” Howard said. “It was my first Paralympic Games, and so I came into it just wanting to do my best, and if I could help out my team, I just wanted to do that. So this has really gone above my expectations.”

Hart Lives A Dream

The same could be said for her teammate Hart. While at the other end of the experience spectrum, Hart—the most veteran member of the team, appearing in her fifth Paralympics—also lived her dreams, and then some, in Paris. 

After just missing the podium in both Beijing (2008) and London (2012), Hart finally struck gold at the Palace of Versailles. And, like Howard, she did it three times over. 

In today’s freestyle, she scored 83.53%—her third personal best of the week—to win the freestyle with Rowan O’Riley’s Floratina over the talented Dutch rider Rixt van der Horst on Royal Fonq (83.00%) and Natasha Baker of Great Britain, who was third on Dawn Chorus (77.14%).

The pair had a tense moment when “Flora” broke into a canter just before entering the ring, but after a few reassuring pats from Hart, the pair were back on the same page by the time they hit centerline for their “Driving Miss Daisy”-themed freestyle.

“I was a little concerned when we started cantering,” Hart admitted. “I was like, she’ll come back to me, she always does. It’s just electric, and she’d been hearing all the crowd for the warm-up before. I just got her back, I told her she was fine, because she went, ‘Are we OK?’ and I said, ‘Yes, we’re fine,’ and she said, ‘OK, I trust you.’ It was such a magical moment, and then we hit the markers the way we needed to.”

Like her teammates, Hart thanked everyone behind Team USA’s success at the Paralympics. 

“I can’t thank everyone enough for this incredible week. Everyone behind the scenes, the grooms, the horse owners, sponsors, vets, Marlene Whitaker who created that freestyle for me—she’s done every single one of my freestyles in my entire career, and I just love ‘Driving Miss Daisy.’ ”

Shoemaker Finds Her Redemption

Kate Shoemaker, who was denied a medal in the individual test after an ill-timed spook, also claimed her own hardware Saturday. With U.S.-bred Vianne, she danced to a bronze medal—her first individual Paralympic medal, adding to the team bronze she earned in Tokyo—in the Grade IV freestyle, scoring 80.17%. Gold went to Dutch rider Demi Haerkens and Daula, who have topped every Grade IV test at these Games, with a score of 83.84% (the highest score awarded during the Paris Paralympics), and Germany’s Anna-Lena Niehues, who improved upon her bronze in the individual test to take silver with Quimbaya 6 on a score of 80.90%.

“I could not keep the smile off my face,” Shoemaker said. “From the moment after the first halt, I was just like, ‘I’m here, with my favorite horse in the world, and the feeling she gave me just gave me so much joy.”

She admitted she was more nervous before her freestyle than she’d ever felt before, in part because she missed out on the team competition.

“It left me with this feeling that today was my last shot for these Games,” she said. “So this morning I was quite nervous, but as soon as I got in the ring with her, I was just overcome with this joy and this peace. And honestly, it was an answer to a prayer this morning, just asking for that peace. I just feel like it was really a God-filled ride for me today, so it was really, really nice.”

In the stands during her ride, friends of the sport horse veterinarian from her vet school days and Vianne’s breeder, Catherine Haddad, held up banners cheering her on.

Shoemaker said the Paralympics was only the second time she and Vianne, an 8-year-old Hanoverian mare (Vitalis—Raureif, Ramiro’s Bube), owned by Norcordia USA, had ridden their “Forrest Gump”-themed freestyle in competition, as earlier this year they used her other horse’s freestyle while developing this one.

“I have always felt so much emotion surrounding the music from ‘Forrest Gump,’ but also the movie,” she said. “The movie’s all about overcoming, and keep going, and getting to something, and I think that’s what our freestyle did today. It was overcoming and getting to the end and the joy and the peace at the end, and that’s where we were at today. I really hope that the music just spoke to everybody and they could feel that it was coming from our souls at the same time.”

In Grade I, Tokyo double gold medalist Roxanne Trunnell had to settle for fifth place aboard Fan Tastico H with a score of 77.30%. The gold in that grade went to Latvia’s Rihards Snikus and Lord of the Dance, who also won the individual test earlier this week, with 82.48%. Italy’s Sara Morganti took silver with Mariebelle (81.40%) and bronze went to Great Britain’s Mari Durward-Akhurst on Athene Lindebjerg (77.74%). 

“I don’t think it was our best, but we tried,” said Trunnell, who has noted the horse is young and still has a big future ahead of him.

The U.S. Para Dressage Team came into the Paris Paralympic Games ranked No. 1 in the world, and they depart with a record medal tally. Along with team gold, Hart and Howard leave with two individual gold medals each, Trunnell with an individual silver and Shoemaker with freestyle bronze. 

See complete scores here.